Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

The Diary of Carlos Delgado

The Mets' Carlos Delgado speaking with students at a Queens school on Tuesday. Credit
Keith Bedford for The New York Times

The students wanted to present Carlos Delgado with a gift he could actually use, something that did not cost a lot of money but showed a lot of thought.

Johnathan Polanco was watching the Mets on television when he thought of the perfect thing. He could get it right out of his own backpack.

Polanco looked like any other seventh grader Tuesday afternoon, standing in the gymnasium at Joseph Pulitzer Intermediate School 145, holding a black-and-white notebook against his chest. When Delgado finished his question-and-answer session with the student body, Polanco walked up to him and handed over the notebook.

"This is for when you need a new one," Polanco said.

Delgado flipped through the pages, just as he does in the Mets' dugout during games. The gymnasium erupted. Teachers beamed. Never has taking notes seemed so popular.

Delgado has become identified in New York, not only by his looping home-run swing, but by his incessant scribbling after at-bats. When Delgado appeared at I.S. 145 in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens this week, the students quickly asked him the most popular question among Mets fans these days: What are you writing, anyway?

"It's just like when you go to school, you take notes," Delgado told the students. "Then, when you have a test, you go back to your notes. I do the same thing for pitchers. It's like if Mrs. Rodriguez said something on April 12, then the test comes around and you forget what she said. I don't want to forget anything."

While other players mope after strikeouts and celebrate after home runs, Delgado goes right to his notebook, often bypassing the Gatorade cooler. He writes the name of the pitcher he faced, how many runners were on base, how many men were out and what pitch sequence he saw. The words are translated into baseball shorthand — fastball outside is "fb away," curveball inside is "cb in." Finally, Delgado adds how he did.

Although scouting reports can show the different ways that pitchers attack left- and right-handed hitters, they rarely show how pitchers attack specific batters. Delgado's notes give him some idea of the game plan against him. If a pitcher traditionally tries to get ahead of him with a fastball away, he can compensate accordingly. If a pitcher usually tries to strike him out with a slider, he can prepare for it.

"I like this better than the scouting reports because it makes you recognize how they are pitching to you," Delgado said. "I can go back and see patterns."

He has been taking copious notes for four seasons, all in the same book that he keeps hidden in his locker. Every plate appearance gets its own line, complete with Delgado's extra observations. For a pitcher throwing harder than expected, he writes "sneaky fast." The students at I.S. 145 must have sensed he was starting to run out of white space.

Photo

Delgado details pitchers' game plans against him in a notebook that he regularly consults. Credit
Robert Caplin for The New York Times

Because Delgado dates every game and numbers every at-bat, he finds the notebook easier to reference than videotape. Before the Mets start a series, he checks to see how the opposing team has pitched him in the past. In the middle of the game, if the opposing team makes a pitching change, Delgado will sometimes go back and look at how the reliever has approached him.

"We all get ready in different ways," Mets outfielder Carlos Beltrán said. "He gets ready by taking out his book."

Once Delgado sees an entry, entire at-bats come back to him, as if he were reading his seventh-grade diary. He remembers how the ball came out of the pitcher's hand, how it moved in the air, how he reacted and what he could have done differently. Delgado believes that jotting down a few details helps him recall more of them.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

The notebook has become a subject of curiosity, not only among Mets fans, but also among teammates. At first, players might have been tempted to tease Delgado, as if he were the student in class who took down every word the teacher uttered. But now that he is hitting .295 with 11 home runs, including the game-winner last night in a 4-3 victory over the Pirates in 12 innings, they are more likely to copy him.

"I'm keeping a little notebook at home," said David Wright, the Mets' third baseman. "I look back at it to see what I was doing when I was hitting well — how far my feet were spread out, how much of my weight I kept back, how I positioned my hands. Carlos shows you to go up there with a plan."

Several young players have asked to see Delgado's notebook, and at least one veteran player has "borrowed" it for an important at-bat. "I'm always trying to sneak a peek at that thing," Mets outfielder Cliff Floyd said. "It tells you what a pitcher likes to throw in a certain situation."

Even if the notebook were ever permanently borrowed, Delgado has most of the data backed up on a computer at home. His appetite for information fits his public image. Delgado is known as a thinking-man's ballplayer, the son of a lab technician and a social worker in Puerto Rico, a slugger who reads philosophy and starts political debates.

When Delgado played for the Toronto Blue Jays and refused to stand for "God Bless America," he was protesting the war in Iraq and the United States' use of Vieques, an island off Puerto Rico, for test bombings. When he started a charitable foundation in Puerto Rico called Extra Bases, he rewarded children who wrote the most convincing essays in school.

"Taking notes plays into it," said Robert Rodriguez, the marketing director for Extra Bases. "Kids today just go to the Internet or their iPod. They don't write. We hope they look at Carlos and think, 'If he does it, I can do it, too.' "

Delgado is not the first player to keep a journal, and when he started, he was hardly intending to inspire young scholars. He was simply trying to get a read on opposing pitchers. But now that he is hitting home runs for a team in New York, and the television cameras are following him to the dugout, every note is becoming more significant.